Page 180 - Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique West 411 - 533

Envoys and Political Communication,411–533

Unlike Vita Orientii and Vita Viviani, there are no direct borrowings of
whole scenes from Vita Germani in Ennodius’ work, though several verbal
echoes have been detected. 160 Ennodius’ familiarity with Vita Germani
is shown both in his fundamental narrative strategies – the sequential
structure of the work and the characterisation of his hero – and in the
borrowing of motifs. Neither Constantius nor Ennodius presents his hero
exclusively as an envoy: Germanus is also an ascetic and, especially, a thau-
maturge; Epiphanius, again an ascetic, is an ecclesiastical administrator,
active in building churches. 161 Butin each Vita, the aspect of the hero as
an envoy and rhetor is intrinsic to the overall composition of the work
and determines its narrative structure. The presentation of the bishops as
legates enables the narratives of the Vitae to be sequentially articulated. 162
Like Paulinus’ Vita Ambrosii, the only extant earlier Life of an Italian
bishop and inevitably an influence on any hagiographer writing in Milan,
Vita Epiphani possesses a chronology discernible to modern scholars from
external dating of the succession of rulers and major events in Italian
politics in which Epiphanius participates. 163 These greatevents are men-
tioned only as they relate to Epiphanius, not to indicate the chronology
of Epiphanius’ episcopate. 164 Though the succession of rulers provides a
general framework for events, the sequential narrative of the Vita arises
from the links between the accounts of embassies. This is particularly true
of the latter half of the work: Epiphanius’ embassy to Theoderic in Milan,
after his entry to Italy, foreshadows the Gothic and Rugian occupations
160 Levison, ‘Bischof Germanus von Auxerre’, 144–5 (description of Epiphanius’ origo,cf. Vita
Germani, 1 and Vita Epiphani, 7; Aetius and Ricimer rem publicam gubernabat,cf. Vita Germani,
28 and Vita Epiphani, 51; admiration of Auxiliaris and Gundobad that the saint’s merits were so
much greater than rumour suggested, cf. Vita Germani, 24 and Vita Epiphani, 152). Levison sees
this as unconscious imitation of a work Ennodius knew in his youth.
161 Building: Ennodius, Vita Epiphani, 101–4, 106. Barnish, ‘Ennodius’ Lives of Epiphanius and
Antony’, 14.
162 Cesa, Introduction to Vita del Epifanio, 32–3, sees Vita Germani as ‘un probabile modello’ of
Vita Epiphani, but considers that the portrait of Epiphanius ‘di diplomatico ed oratore... ` edel
tutto nuova’; cf. Reydellet, La Royaut´ e, 147–8: ‘D’un pointde vue litt´ eraire, on ne sentpas
des mod` eles.’ Cesa discusses the tipi of Germanus and Epiphanius, a dominantapproach in
modern hagiographic studies, and rightly notes similarities and differences in their portraits. But
more telling than the tipi considered in isolation is the underlying narrative structure of each
Vita, which facilitates the presentation of the bishops as intercessors and which is fundamentally
different from the thematically articulated structures in vitae of ‘prophetic’ bishops such as Martin
or Severinus. It is Constantius’ narrative structure which Ennodius appropriates.
163
Like Ambrose, Epiphanius’ protagonists are almost exclusively rulers. Note the inclusion of the
emperors Olybrius and Glycerius; Epiphanius has no dealings with the former, and his contact
with the latter is mentioned but not dramatised. These emperors seem to be included for a sense
of completeness. First Italian episcopal vita since Vita Ambrosii: Cesa, Introduction to Vita del
Epifanio, 7; influence of Vita Ambrosii: Cesa, Commentary to ibid., 191.
164
The only chronological details of Epiphanius’ episcopate are Ennodius, Vita Epiphani, 81: Epipha-
nius undertakes the mission to Euric in the eighth year of his episcopate; 182: final journey to
Theoderic takes place two years after the embassy to Gundobad.
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